Junior Legal Counsel: Scaling Counsel

Most legal careers make you choose between work that’s interesting and work that matters. This one doesn’t. You’ll use your skills to make a difference to the planet, the economy and an ambitious, fast-growing business, all at once, while helping to build the legal foundations of a new asset class. You’ll have real responsibility from day one, the support to deliver exceptional work and lead by example, and a role that will take your career to the next level.

Oxygen Conservation is recruiting a Junior Legal Counsel to support all three of our divisions (Capital, Conservation and Intelligence) and our growing portfolio of conservation estates. You don’t need to be a specialist environmental lawyer to apply. This is a commercial role, advising on everything from estate acquisitions, natural capital projects, and corporate and funding arrangements, through to intellectual property, data protection and employment.

About You

The role will be varied and you’ll need to be comfortable with complexity, nuance and competing priorities. You’ll be trusted with real responsibility quickly, with direct access to our Head of Legal and the freedom to ask questions without hesitation. Strengths in relationship building, organisation and communication are key, along with the initiative to work productively and independently in a remote team.

Environment

• Passionate about the environment, sustainability and achieving real impact, with the same unwavering commitment that drives us.
• Excitement about how lawyers can contribute to the growing natural capital economy.

Impact

• High personal standards: you deliver high-quality legal work on time because it matters to you, not because someone is making you.
• A pragmatic, commercial problem-solver who can ‘connect the dots’ and is happy to roll up your sleeves to deliver impact.
• Confidence in a highly autonomous environment, with the space to deliver exceptional work and the support to excel.
• Sound judgement about when to decide, when to ask and when to escalate.
• Curiosity about technology, data and AI, and how they can make legal work smarter, while keeping your own judgement firmly in charge.

Adventure

• A passion for adventures in nature, and excitement about joining us for incredible team experiences.
• Excited by the unknown. Much of what we do has never been done before, so there is often no precedent to follow.

Together

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to tailor advice to each stakeholder.
• Collaboration makes your day better, and you value the headspace to think deeply too. Here, you’ll have plenty of both.
• And let’s be honest, you must be a really nice person too. Sharing snacks on long journeys and good humour on a hillside in the driving rain is mandatory!

We welcome qualified solicitors in England or Scotland with one to three years’ post-qualification experience, whether from private practice, in-house or both. A background, or real interest, in IP, data protection and/or technology law would be a real bonus. You’ll need to hold, or be eligible to hold, a current practising certificate; we’ll fund it, along with your continuing professional development.

You don’t need to tick every box to apply. We’re committed to building a genuinely diverse team drawn from across the country, with a wide range of lived and learnt experiences, and we’ll support you every step of the way with a bespoke learning and development plan.

About the Role

Day to day, your core focus will be natural capital projects, estate operational matters, commercial contracts, data protection and intellectual property. Around that core, you’ll work across corporate and company secretarial matters, real estate, natural capital transactions, and the legal workstreams behind our expansion into Europe.

You’ll report to our Head of Legal, Hannah Davies, and work alongside our General Counsel and Oxygen Capital Managing Director, George Pawley. This is a defining moment for us: the legal work we do now will shape how natural capital is bought, restored, financed and protected for decades to come. You won’t be a passive recipient of requests; you’ll actively shape the role and help deliver the strategic projects that will Scale Conservation.

Flexibility is a central tenet of our culture. Unashamedly inspired by ‘Let My People Go Surfing’ by Yvon Chouinard, we encourage our remote team to walk in the woods, work from a coffee shop, or just focus at home in peace and quiet.

Key Responsibilities

• Legal Documentation: Drafting, reviewing, negotiating and managing a wide variety of legal agreements and documents, including:
• Estate acquisitions and operational real estate matters (e.g. title reports, residential tenancies, agricultural leases and licences).
• Natural capital projects (e.g. BNG s106 agreements and conservation covenants, carbon credit and BNG sales contracts).
• Commercial contracts (e.g. NDAs, consultancy, supply and framework agreements with corporate and utility counterparties).
• Corporate and governance documents (e.g. board and shareholder resolutions, minutes, statutory registers and Companies House filings).
• First Point of Contact: Acting as the go-to legal contact for our estate managers and operations teams, giving prompt, practical advice that keeps our conservation projects moving.
• Data Protection: Owning the day-to-day operation of our data protection framework, from ICO registration, privacy notices and impact assessments to data sharing agreements and subject access requests.
• Strategic Advice and Risk: Supporting our Head of Legal with tailored advice that informs decision-making and helps us manage legal and commercial risk.
• Legal Technology and Operations: Using AI and legal technology to improve how legal work is delivered, and building the templates, policies and processes that help the business move faster.
• Investor and Finance Support: Assisting with reporting to portfolio owners and debt providers, and supporting fundraising and annual audit processes.
• External Advisers and Disputes: Instructing external law firms on outsourced projects and assisting with disputes and settlements as required.
• Horizon Scanning: Staying up to date with changes in law, regulation and best practice relevant to our operations.

About Us

We’re building the UK’s first genuine natural capital portfolio: acquiring large landscapes, restoring them at scale, and proving that nature recovery can create real, investable value. Founded in 2021 with a clear mission, Scaling Conservation , we now manage over 50,000 acres across 12 estates in England, Scotland and Wales, creating premium natural capital products like carbon credits, biodiversity units and nature credits, while exploring regenerative agriculture, renewable energy and ecotourism. By 2030, our ambition is to have 250,000 acres under restoration. Our mission is simple: prove that restoring ecosystems can deliver transformative environmental and social impact, and financial returns.

Our work hasn’t gone unnoticed. We were named Start-Up of the Year at the 2022 Business Leader South West Awards and Team of the Year at the 2023 Edie Awards, and our nature funding agreement with Triodos won ESG Deal of the Year in 2024. Our founder and CEO, Dr Rich Stockdale, features in the ENDS Power List .

Our legal team has been recognised too. Our General Counsel, George, was named one of The Lawyer’s Hot 100 in 2024, and the team was Highly Commended for In-House Team of the Year: Growth Businesses at The Lawyer Awards 2026. We have also recently been shortlisted for In-House Legal Team of the Year (Small Team) at the British Legal Awards and Outsized Impact (Lean Legal Team) at the Leadership in Law Awards.

Key Information

Term: Full time, permanent

Location: Remote with quarterly adventures to estates in England, Wales and Scotland and to our group HQ at Oxygen House in Exeter

Reporting to: Hannah Davies, Head of Legal

Post-Qualification Experience: 1–3 years (either English or Scottish qualified)

Closing Date: Monday 23 November 2026